The Blood Between Us by Zac Brewer

in?”
    “Honors Literature, AP Chemistry, AP Calculus, communication, economics, and biology.”
    I swirled a dinner roll around on my plate, sopping up the blood from the rare meat. So far, it was the longest civil dinner conversation in the history of our dinner conversations.
    “You?”
    “I’m taking regular chem and AP Bio. I’m in communication with you, though. Should prove interesting.” That last bit had a hint of an edge to it. Not enough to really taste it, but enough that one might notice if it was left out of the recipe. I decided to tread lightly for the rest of the evening.
    The conversation remained relatively tolerable throughout dinner. There were, of course, the occasional insults from Grace, but I let them pass. She thought she was being clever in the way that she tried to hide them within compliments, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. And I was determinedto keep my promise to Julian.
    Dinner passed and dessert was served. I always loved the way that the vanilla bean ice cream pooled with the warm cherry crumble in the bottom of my bowl. The contrast between hot and cold, sweet and tart, made my taste buds happy. There would certainly not be anything this good in the cafeteria.
    Finally, I stretched my arms over my head and yawned. “I think I’ll turn in early. Thanks for the grub, Julian. It was delicious, as always. See you all in the morning.”
    With that, I made my way to the stairs. But I hadn’t made it up the first two before footsteps from behind caught my attention. I thought maybe Julian was coming to thank me for letting so much go during dinner. But there was no way I could be so lucky.
    “Adrien.” Grace’s voice was barely above a whisper. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Viktor and Julian weren’t listening. “I want to be clear that I’m only playing nice for Viktor. If he weren’t dying, you and I wouldn’t be speaking, and we certainly wouldn’t be speaking cordially.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. Was that what you call cordial?” I nodded toward the dining room. The look on her face told me that she knew exactly what I was talking about.
    “More so than usual, you have to admit.” The eye rollingthat accompanied her words said this was as good as I could expect to get. “Besides, we only have to pretend when we’re around Viktor.”
    I couldn’t believe her gall. “You say that like it was your idea, which is bullshit and we both know it. We’re only acting civilly because Julian asked us to. Don’t think I like it any more than you do.”
    Grace folded her arms across her chest and rolled her eyes again. Sometimes I wondered how they didn’t roll right out of her head and across the floor.
    “I’ll tell you what, sis. You just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Deal?”
    “Fine by me. Just make sure you hold up your end of that deal. Because if you get in my way at school, I don’t intend to swerve. I’ll plow right over you.” With that, Grace stomped back into the dining room, and I climbed the stairs.
    My phone buzzed in my pants pocket. When I pulled it out, there was a new text message, and I knew it was from the unknown number that had messaged me before because it appeared in the same chat window.
    The papers she took are key. Find them.
    I texted back. Who is this?
    There was no reply.

CHAPTER 4
PARTIAL PRESSURE:
    The pressure that would be exerted by one of the gases in a mixture if it occupied the same volume on its own
    When I awoke the next morning, my mind was buzzing from a restless night of nightmares—some the usual back-to-school kind, and some not so much. I needed to get my ass back to California as soon as possible. It was bad enough when I’d thought being here would just mean having to see Grace around every turn. But it was getting harder to avoid thinking that she was part of some larger conspiracy. Even if it was coming from an anonymous source, the suggestion was enough to trigger some long-dormant